Tag Archives: blame

The Tyranny of Money

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It happened again, but you won’t find it online or in the newspaper. The wealthy banker saw to that. The police knew the couple. A number of domestic violence calls, two trips to the emergency room for broken ribs. No news coverage, all hush hush.

This time, the police found her in her gray Lexus in a no parking zone at sunrise. Slumped inside a mink coat, her head tipped against the window, jaw slack, mouth open. Her diamond necklace and rings sparkled in the morning light.

One of the officers knocked on the window; she didn’t respond. They pried the door open on the passenger side. The car smelled from alcohol. They recognized her as one of the top fundraisers for the annual community event benefiting the police and fire departments.

An ambulance raced her to hospital emergency where doctors tried to wake her. A blood sample determined that she taken sleeping pills with vodka. They pumped her stomach and checked her in for further tests. It didn’t look like an accident.

When they reached her husband, in Paris for a banking conference, he was furious. “No, he couldn’t return that day, he had an important meeting. He’d call the kids. They’d handle it.” Thousands of dollars on a shrink, he thought,  and she was still pulling this kind of stunt.

“No, nothing was any different now,” he said in response to their question. Oh, one thing – he’d filed for divorce earlier in the week.

Could the police keep the car incident out of the papers?” he asked. “Maybe they could, but the divorce filing is public information,” they answered. “We can’t do anything about that.”

He slammed the phone down. “Bitch – the damn woman was always messing things up for him.”

 

 

No Flowers for Mother’s Day

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Legions of adult children spend thousands dollars and hours on the therapist’s couch, reviewing, ruminating and regurgitating things their parents did or didn’t do.

I’m not including parents here who were intentionally abusive, either physically, verbally, sexually or emotionally. I’m talking about well meaning parents who had the best intentions, did the best they could, yet still get blamed for the things that go wrong in the life of their adult child.

Unfortunately, parent blaming has a willing ally in therapy circles. In an unscientific profession that can only speculate about cause and outcome, assigning blame to parents is easy, irresponsible and widespread. The 50 minute hour does not include the parents, so the  therapist gets a one-sided view of people who never get the chance to respond.

It requires a truly ethical therapist to say to a client  ” I haven’t met your parents, but isn’t it possible they did the best they could? It’s time for you to take responsibility for your role in the relationship. After all, you’re an adult now.”

To all you garden variety mothers who tried your best and it wasn’t good enough, you who won’t be hearing from your children this Mother’s Day, I can’t send you flowers, but rest assured that you’re not alone.